Best New Building

UA Architecture Building

Staff Pick

Besides the obvious beauty of the three-story glass wall that reflects the ever-changing sky, we love the giant dollhouse effect at night when the windows disappear and give us a cutaway view of architecture students working away inside. (It's 2 a.m., you guys! Go home and get some sleep!) But the best part? This is Tucson's largest green building: The south side is a wall of trellis, which will grow into a green wall of yellow orchid vines (Mascagnia macroptera) to shade and cool the interior, and there's a rooftop water-harvesting system that fills an 11,000-gallon cistern that irrigates the lush sunken garden on the south side.